DylanWaco

Thanks for this I really do appreciate. I've seen maybe half of those, but I will definitely try and catch up on the other half

Rob just curious what would you say the best five Superstars matches this year have been? I have watched Superstars on and off this year and want to know if I have missed anything of note

Question, what Big Japan matches from 2013 should I give a shot?

I think Brock is a reasonable comparison, though it doesn't feel the same because wrestling had changed a great deal by the time he came around. I don't agree on Kurt - it's impossible for me to envision the WWE allowing HHH to job at a major ppv in a major market in seconds to a guy debuting from the number three fed.

HHH got a massive heel push. You can argue about whether or not he "deserved" it or whether or not he worked hard to get it or whether or not he was the best choice (of the guys in the WWE even I think he was the best choice, but it was slim pickings in terms of viable heel options of that sort at that time), but if you are arguing that it was just another push and not atypical you are fucking nuts. The number of heels in the WWE/WWF history who got pushes like that is...well...offhand he's the only one I can think of

I'm not saying it was the best tv show of the year or even close to it, but that might have been my favorite show all year. Yes there were matches I wish had gotten more time BUT.... - Really liked the opening segment and often don't like WWE opening segments - I don't even like Cody and I'm middle of the road on McGuillicutty but aside from the weak finisher I thought it was a decent match. - Dolph should only be allowed to work sprints against Big E at this point. Guy is a great base and dude for Dolph to fly off of, his big spots look really impressive and he will take a crazy bump himself. - Actually this was the show of psychotic bumps as Del Rio almost died five seconds into the Christian match and then Christian took his lump later. They had another really good match. Not at the level of the ppv, but a very good tv match. Ricardo with RVD is so stupid that it makes me laugh so there is that too. - Show/Henry I really like as a team. I don't really like Henry being all smiley, but on scale I want to see them crush dudes and watching them crush 3MB was fun. Slater brought his version of the crazy bump here. - Cesaro v. Darren Young was damn fun for the three or four minutes it got. I wish they would make better use of Cesaro's talents, but I have hope they are building a real angle with these teams and wouldnt' be shocked to see them get the youtube match for the next ppv which would be great. - Another great Ryback bully segment. - Barrett/Bryan in the Cage was good. Not great, but good. Glad Bryan is keeping the running knee KO finish and that powerbomb was another nutty spot. I just thought the show was a good use of a broad cross section of talent. I really do love Sheamus and Cena, but I think in some ways them being gone is going to open up for a lot of fun top to bottom shows like this

Best part of the interview was HHH admitting he's a bootlegger

Well El Dandy is one of the best wrestlers of all time so that shouldn't be hard.

I think Cesaro's biggest problem is that he hasn't connected with the crowd yet. He's a pretty vanilla heel and hasn't shown much of a personality yet (other than the WWE youtube stuff). I'd actually like to see him as a face with a bit wackier personality. There was a period from the end of last year through the beginning of this year where Cesaro seemed like he was getting over. Things leveled off with his push and that was that

This is probably the stupidest statement in the history of this board, not because I can't see how a diehard New Japan fan would say they liked several G1 matches more, but because masturbatory devotion to NJPW is probably the closest thing to modern wrestling hipsterdom this side of Chikara. I liked the G1 WAY more than I thought I would especially since I hate or are bored by half of the guys who were in the thing, but there were exactly two matches from the whole tourney that I think were even borderline MOTYC's - Ishii/Shibata and Nakamura/Ibushi. Nothing else was even close to MOTY level in my view. Cesaro/Zayn was structured in a way that is much more in line with what I want a wrestling match to be, though I think it's a peripheral MOTYC at best also. I'd rate all three of those matches around the same level.

Great review. Honestly I liked this as much as any match from the G1. Here is my review This was slow building and I agree that some of the front end control segments weren't necessarily dynamic, but I thought this had a sort of subtle greatness to it that is incredibly rare in WWE matches, especially WWE tv matches. Generico is so much better as Zayn it's kind of hysterical. Almost all of his bad habits are gone, the guy has good facial expressions and being tempered by the WWE style makes his more spectacular spots ten times more impressive. Cesaro is Cesaro. Along with Rush, Casas and Bryan I think he has pretty much lapped the rest of the field this year and this is another notch in his belt. I liked the explosive finish on the opening fall and I actually loved the second fall finish as well for two reasons - 1. they have done a ton to build that as a set up for Cesaro's finish and 2. on all the previous attempts Zayn had squeezed his hand in between Cesaro's arm to cut off the pressure which further got over the danger of the hold and also made it feel more credible as a finish then it otherwise might have. The strikes in the second fall looked really good, I really enjoyed Zayn's hope spots, Cesaro's offense looked awesome as always, et. Third fall was the only fall that I thought felt PWGish at all, but I thought the lay out of it was actually genius. The whole sequence with the massive apron in suplex from Cesaro, through the deadlift out of the Zayn small package escape, into Zayn trying to beat him with a schoolboy (which Zayn won the first fall with), into Cesaro getting on a grounded chinlock (which he won the second fall with), to Sami escaping with the Bret Hart style reverse roll near fall, was definitely up tempo, but excellent. Then we got the two biggest Zayn spots of the match, the Code Red style sunset flip as a counter which looked excellent and the through the ropes DDT on the floor which led to a great teased double countout moment and also looked great. And finally Sami shows some mild arrogance, telegraphs his big finish, gets decimated in a true "holy shit" spot on the uppercut and loses to a huge looking neutralizer. This match had great pacing, some excellent but well timed highspots and very strong psychology. Cesaro is the god of all wrestling bases and there were tons of little things he did in this match that I didn't even mention. This probably suffers some from coming on the heels of such a great Summerslam, but I thought this was a great match.

Any other notable matches on the taping Tim?

I just watched it and even assuming as much was cut as is said it was a really amazing match in a lot of ways. I'll grant that the build was slow, but it had a subtle sort of greatness to it that is not terribly common in WWE matches, especially WWE tv matches. The build to the big spots and the way the chinlock was used throughout the whole match was really excellent. Cesaro is the best base in wrestling and probably still my working number one guy in the world (though Casas, Rush and Bryan are right there)

As always someone send me the link for this show when it hits the web. I want to see if I agree with Rob or if I think he's nuts on that main event

I actually don't mind Young beating Cesaro because I like Young and the PTP's and if they are going to put Cesaro in a tag team I'd rather him have some sort of feud/angle where the matches might get on tv more and it seems like they may be doing that with the PTP's and Real Americans.

They had their job security threatened. Everyone just saw what HHH did at SummerSlam. Dolph and Big Show lipped off and got rolled by The Shield. Why risk your livelihood for a dude who has to stand tall? Especially when there's a chance the guy standing behind you is in cahoots with this whole thing and can take you out as well. Next week (or the week after) is when the rallying cry begins. Because they're good guys and that's what good guys do. Where the fuck is Sting? Hanging around with deranged drug addicts and millionaires who bankroll that dependency

Next week Bryan needs to destroy Brad Maddox

They are a great tag team who I have missed so I don't give a fuck, though a part of me wishes Generico was a member of the group just because I guarantee it would have triggered fanboy rage.

Has any wrestler in history been injured as much on camera as Sin Cara? I actually liked a bunch of this show. I liked the emphasis on the tag team division and really loved The Shield's role in things. I liked the opening segment and I thought the closing segment was fine EXCEPT they never should have had everyone up on the ramp. That was just too much. Big Show looked great. The Punk segment stood out a ton.

Now that you mention it Bryan's guillotine was probably the most believable "MMA" spot on the show

I agree that the Punk triangle looked weak, but his strikes looked about fifty thousand times better in this match then they have any time in recent memory

Lesnar's sell of the GTS was awesome.

Show was great, fucked all the G1 shows in the ass. There is no one here more indifferent to Orton than me, and possibly no one who likes HHH less than me, and I still had no problem with the finish. The end result is going to benefit Bryan as with Cena out for a while he is effectively the ace babyface, Orton who sucks cock as a face is now heel, HHH got his ego fuck in here which means we might not be subjected to the King of Kings showing Bryan who is boss in a match, Bryan beat the biggest star in wrestling clean in the middle of the ring (literally) and the Bryan fetishists are losing their minds with rage which makes me laugh and will increase his popularity long term.

I completely agree with Matt on this. In theory I think the timing of the deadline is fine, but without that forum I am fearful we are going to have a lot of people who watched the whole set, participated in the process and end up not submitting a ballot. I could put together a decent ballot without access to it, but it would help me a great deal as well. If it is at all possible to retrieve that forum - or even just the AWA stuff from that forum - the deadline should wait until that happens

Not going to update the list outright but here are few stock going up/stock going down picks. There are lots of guys who will drop because of injuries, being booked in shitty situations, not making tape for one reason or another, et (Sheamus, Timothy Thatcher, Necro Butcher, Villano IV, Briscoes are some examples), but that won't be the purpose of this update. Stock Going Down Kyle Matthews - I'm still about as big a fan of his as there is, especially because he is a modern indie guy who tries to work a mix of the expected super indie style with traditional southern wrestling basics, but he has not been impressive in the last couple of months. A couple of really awkward heel performance (he really shouldn't be working heel anyhow), plus some other disappointing matches. His big strength the last couple of years has been his consistency and without that I can't see him as a top twenty guy, let alone top ten. Kazushi Sakuraba - The Dome match reminds one of my favorites of the year, but he was extremely underwhelming (to say the least) in the comeback match v. Nagata and while I liked some of his exchanges on the last night of the G1, he didn't look like a top tier worker at all in that match. Will need at least one more homerun to stay in my upper third and I don't know if he has it in him. Dean Allmark - He's probably been in as many good matches this year as anyone, but his formula is really tired and he is rarely (if ever) the best guy in his matches. He's a good wrestler, but even when I was first compiling this it felt weird to put him in the upper quarter. It's a relatively weak year outside of the top five or so, but he will need to have a breakout performance to hold place. Jeff Cobb - Really starting to feel like the Thatcher match was a carry job. The guy has really dynamic highspots but looks lost at times in between them. He's had other matches I've liked this year, but also matches where he's been really poor. Cyrus The Destroyer - Has only made tape one more time, a really awful performance in a clusterfuck WarGames match where he looked like he was annoyed even being there. I'd like to think that was a rare night off, but that's the sort of match a guy like him should excel in. Right now he feels more like a bottom ten guy, then a guy hovering around the top half. Stock Going Up Brian Rivers - He's the indie guy who I have really "found" in the last month and a half that stands out. All but one of the matches I've seen him in has been a tag with his partner Casey Cage, but he's been the best guy in every match by a safe margin and they have worked a wide variety of teams. He's very Dick Murdochish in look, is an interesting/unorthodox mat worker, bumps well, and has a great understanding of psych. He also throws a mean punch. He wouldn't be high up the list at this point, but he'd make it for sure. Rey Hechicero Charles Lucero I am lumping these guys together because the last few weeks they have earned their spot together. Their most recent match is my new MOTY over Regal/Ohno and the matches in the weeks before that were top notch as well (the first was a trio). Hechicero was already on the lower rungs of my list, but after this run I could see a real case to springboard both him and Lucero up around the top ten. Shinsuke Nakamura - There are things I absolutely hate about Nakamura. I've compared him to Randy Orton before and in many respects I think that is dead on, though I think his best is better than Orton's best. And really his stock is going up because at his best he was able to have a great, top ten of the year level match with Ibushi of all people. I've said elsewhere that Nakamura is like a .235 power hitter who strikes out a ton, but when he makes contact he's likely to smash one out of the park with the bases loaded. You kind of have to take the bad with the good with Nakamura, but with two of the best matches of the year to his credit, to go along with several other really good ones, 65 seems awfully low. He's likely gonna move up a good bit. Tomohiro Ishii - The best guy in Japan this year, which in my view isn't saying all that much, but it also isn't something that should be laughed at. He's a very flawed wrestler and there are things about the standard Ishii match that drives me nuts. But he is stiff, has a flare for the dramatic, is surprisingly good at selling long term damage over the course of match, and was the obvious star of the G1. Who knows what will happen over the few months, but right now I'd peg him as no worse than a top twenty-five guy, and a guy who is perhaps on the periphery of top ten.